Current systems for measuring the health of components of railcars in situ through various metrology approaches and of identifying particular railcars with which to associate the health data are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,925,873, 8,655,540, 8,326,582, and 8,140,250, among others. Additionally, attempts have been made to measure specific effects, such as sound levels. However, these attempts have almost universally been for evaluation and planning purposes, not for long-term, real-time monitoring and control of the environmental effects. Because of this, no real work exists on the ability to provide such information in real-time.
Increasingly, installations of residential, research, and manufacturing facilities encroach closely upon operating rail transit lines. Issues of excessive sound, or noise pollution, are well-known issues of quality of life for operating rail lines as well as issues of ride quality for passengers. However, as an increasing number of people are living near rail lines or considering using the train for their commutes, this issue is becoming far more acute.
Additionally, such trains produce significant and variable vibration and can also produce significant electromagnetic interference (EMI) from arcing or from electric drive motors operating at less than optimal levels. While these issues are generally less a concern for residential neighborhoods, they can be extremely important for nearby research institutions, which are performing research on nanoscale levels. In this case, vibrations of a micron or so, or extremely small variations in the electromagnetic field, can severely disrupt operations. Similarly, manufacturing installations involved in sensitive manufacturing, such as manufacturing at very small physical scales (e.g., microchip manufacture), also can be sensitive to such effects. Disruption at the wrong time could cost immense sums of money by damaging a run of chips in a manufacturing facility or by rendering a key experiment useless.